win xp

installing xp home for the first time on a ntfs formated HD. The installation gets to the second from last point, the one before 'finalizing installation, and the system reboots. When it starts again it starts from initialising installation, theoretically loosing all the data its just copied to the hard drive in the previous process therefore leaving 39 mins left every time. This happens in a continual loop untill i clean install and start from scratch only to get the same ....????

can anyone help

many thanks

Does it crash? Bluescreen? or Restart?

Try removing the CD before it can restart completely.

i get a restart, no BSOD, no crash

I have tried taking the cd out before restart with no effect


thanks

What I've seen people suggest many times for mystery problems like this is to remove everything but the bare essentials, and install that way. I think you probably have some sort of hardware/driver problem, and that would allow you diagnose it as you reinstall one part at a time after you get XP installed.

Simple this one... when it restarts, whip out the cd, and set the bios to boot fro the hard drive... This should be done on the first restart...

set to boot from the HD, cd out = no joy. It just says restarting installation and then gets to 33 mins to go and reboots. Exactly the same for 'home' and 'pro' . The hard drive has just popped its clogs, XP? i dont know so ive got to RMA it, to maxtor although its a quantum, fingers crossed!!!!

thanx for the help